For nearly two decades, Leroy Jethro Gibbs has been the unshakable center of NCIS — cool under pressure, stoic in interrogation rooms, and famously allergic to small talk. But according to crew members, one Season 7 scene proved that even Gibbs had his breaking point… in the funniest way possible.
The moment came during the filming of an interrogation with Michael Weatherly’s Tony DiNozzo and Cote de Pablo’s Ziva David. In the script, Gibbs was supposed to quietly enter the room, slam a folder on the table, and deliver a razor-sharp line meant to rattle the suspect. But right before Harmon’s cue, Weatherly slipped a tiny sticker of a goldfish onto the folder — a reference to a private on-set joke about Gibbs’ love of ca
Harmon tried to power through the scene, but the second his eyes landed on the goldfish, his serious expression cracked. He attempted the line three times before bursting into full laughter, sending the crew into hysterics. The take had to be reset multiple times, and the entire shoot ran over by an hour.
“That was the first time I ever saw Mark lose it like that,” one longtime crew m
The footage, of course, never made it to air. But cast insiders say the goldfish sticker lived on, mysteriously appearing on random props in Gibbs’ scenes for weeks afterward — a little reminder that even the most stone-faced NCIS agent can break character.
